Company:

Airbus

Products:

Adams

Industries:

Aerospace

Overview:

Airframes are designed to deflect in response to aerodynamic
and gravitational loads during flight. These deflections in turn load
the mechanisms riding on the airframe that move the primary
flight control surfaces to maneuver the aircraft. The airframe
manufacturer must ensure that deflections of these mechanisms
at any point in the flight envelope do not affect their operation.
For example, the Airbus A400M elevator is connected to the
horizontal tail plane (HTP) with eight hinges that form a straight
line when the wing is undeformed. Seven of these hinges are
floating hinges which can float in the hinge line direction. When
the HTP structure is loaded, it deforms, deforming the hinge line.
The multi body simulation (MBS) model here shows the location
of hinge 7 which is used to move the elevator, and the drawing
below the model shows a cross-section of the hinge. The gap
g2 in the drawing allows the red lug to slide on the green pin.

Results Validation:

”The replacement of the physical A350-
1000 wing bending test with simulation
of the effects of deflection on the flight
controls saved Airbus about €3 million
and 4 months on the certification process
for the A350,” said Michael Vetter, Project
Leader Multi-Body Simulation with Airbus.
Most of these savings were achieved by
eliminating the need to build test fixtures.
Similar savings will be achieved for each
future aircraft model. Airbus engineers are
also working to apply this same method
to other mechanical systems of the aircraft
such as landing gear and passenger doors.

Benefits:

Saving significant time and costs
by replacing expensive physical
testing with Adams simulation

Removing the limitation on the
number of different load cases
and configurations that could be
tested by physical test rig

The simulation results
successfully correlated with all of
the tests

These results convinced
European Aviation Safety
Agency(EASA) that functional
testing could be replaced with
Adams simulation so simulation
is used to certify the A350-1000
XWB wing